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Large sums of money are spent each year on the development of employees and managers. It is estimated by the American Society of Training and Development that this sum was 156 billion dollars in 2011. There is no question that the return from this investment isn’t always realized. While some pays off handsomely, there is a general consensus that a good portion of that money is being squandered. What can be done to maximize the return on this huge investment? I have one specific recommendation.

Our firm collects 360 feedback data describing the behavior of senior executives down through middle managers. We do it worldwide and now have a half-million of these 360 degree feedback instruments that pertain to 50,000 leaders. We have noticed that the most sophisticated organizations take such measurements regularly, year after year. We ask two important questions to help measure the growth of each participant:

Do you feel that during this development process you have improved, stayed the same, or declined in your effectiveness during this intervening year period?

To what degree has your manager been involved in the development process?

Here is a chart that shows the result of plotting the percentage of people who thought they had improved and comparing that to the level of involvement of their manager. The results could not be clearer. There is obviously a strong correlation between the level of involvement of the manager and the amount of change that occur.

The take-away is simple. If a company wants to greatly increase the ROI from their training and development budget, then it must get the immediate manager much more involved in their subordinate’s development. There’s no additional outlay of money and it makes a huge difference.

So why doesn’t it happen more often? I believe there are two major reasons.

First, we have found that the participants have not taken the initiative to make that happen. That was reinforced a short while ago as I met with a group of managers for a follow-up session in a long-term development process. In the original session, they received their 360 degree feedback, created a plan for their personal development and were encouraged to meet with their manager to review the feedback and obtain their support. Based on my experience with hundreds of such meetings, no one ever thinks this is a bad idea, but when following up afterward, we observe that it happens infrequently. In fact, no one in that group thought they had done well at involving their manager. Managers are not the only ones responsible to ensure development happens. Participants should be wise and courageous enough to hold themselves accountable for reaching their development goals, and creating opportunities to meet with the manager to follow-up.

Second, we find that managers are often unclear about what they should do. Here’s my checklist of what every manager should do when a subordinate is selected to attend any development program.

Establish Expectations: Meet with that individual and discuss why they have been chosen. Explain what you hope they will take away from this experience. What new behavior do you expect them to return with? What are the business outcomes you hope for?

Check for Understanding: Schedule a meeting with the participant shortly after their return from the development program. Indicate that you would like to hear about what they learned and how they will translate that into their “on-the-job behavior.”

Implement On-the-job Application: During the first meeting, ask them about what they learned and how they will apply that going forward. Be specific about the new behavior that you should be able to observe. Discuss how you can be of assistance in the implementation of these new behaviors on the job.

Talk About It Frequently:Schedule additional coaching sessions during which you discuss their progress.

Create Follow-up Measures: Make their progress on their personal development plan one of the things you discuss during the performance review process. Convey that you have the same expectations for them to follow through on this as you have about any of their other performance goals.

It is simple to increase the ROI from any learning and development effort: if participants will involve their manager, and if managers follow the steps above.